I have outlined it below in short; further down is the longer version with explanation details for each main and sub-category. It is stated that many of these categories are conservative calculations and that many categories are certain to rise in cost.

Launching criminal prosecutions and real investigations is one of the main prerequisites for an economic recovery.

Trust in Government is Necessary for a Stable Economy

A 2005 letter in premier scientific journal Nature reviewed the research on trust and economics:

Trust … plays a key role in economic exchange and politics. In the absence of trust among trading partners, market transactions break down. In the absence of trust in a country’s institutions and leaders, political legitimacy breaks down. Much recent evidence indicates that trust contributes to economic, political and social success.

Forbes wrote an article in 2006 entitled “The Economics of Trust”. The article summarizes the importance of trust in creating a healthy economy: Read the rest of this entry »

For the victim’s families, the costs of the September 11th attacks were incomprehensibly high. There were many other costs apart from precious human lives, however, and people often forget just how much we are all paying on an ongoing basis due to the attacks which originated the “Global War on Terror.”

An organization linked to former CIA director James Woolsey estimated that the damages associated with the attacks were on the order of $2 trillion. Those costs included losses in property damage, lost production of goods and services, and losses on Wall Street. [1] Others have estimated the damages to be much lower, [2] and some have reported that the stock market was largely unaffected by the attacks. [3] The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was given an amount closer to the lower estimates in order to help rebuild the immediate area.[4]

The current US military costs resulting from the wars that were started in response to the September 11th attacks are over $1 trillion.[5] Of course, other countries have also incurred significant costs to support the US led wars. A few years ago, mainstream media sources were estimating that the Iraq War alone would cost the US more than $3 trillion.[6] If the same logic is applied to the Afghanistan war, using the same rate, that war will cost the US at least $1 trillion. Of course, there is no end in sight for US military operations in either of these occupied countries, so these figures should be seen as minimum estimates. Additionally, these war cost estimates are called incremental costs, meaning that they are above “military salaries, training and support activities, and weapons procurement” as well as military construction.[7]

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.

Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.

Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.